Press Briefing of 15 March 2000

UNMIK Spokeswoman Ms Susan Manuel

From the police we have a flash report from the southeast of Decani, a village called Pozhar, where a cluster bomb explosion has apparently killed two young boys, 12 and 17 years old. I would ask you to call the police for further details, at extension 5071.

We would like to express our deep regret and condolences to the families.

Last night people in town reported hearing an explosion around 9 p.m. That was an accident in an UNMIK Police officer's flat. There were no injuries.

Yesterday in the Gnjilane area, near the village of Firaja, a crowd of some 70 to 100 Albanians blocked and stoned a Serb convoy.

This morning there was slight chaos in Mitrovica. KFOR has been trying to widen a security zone at the north end of the eastern bridge. In doing so, they are removing the Serb men who hang out around the end of the bridge. Two UNMIK Police cars were stoned in that incident this morning.

By the end of the month, we will have two special police units, one coming from Pakistan and one from Jordan, each with at least 100 officers, probably to be deployed to Mitrovica. They are trained in riot control and other specialised police work. They come as self-contained units from their countries, but their role is to back up the UNMIK Police, and they work under the command of the UNMIK Police Comissioner or the commander of the region.

We also received a letter last night from European

Union Chairman Jaime Gama, pledging another 320 police officers from EU countries to arrive soon. Many of them are specialists in combating organized crime and drug trafficking. Currently we have 2,547 UNMIK Police in theatre; 2,390 of them are deployed, the rest are in training.

First I will give you some information about what's going on in Mitrovica. Susan already mentioned it briefly. This morning UNMIK and KFOR began to establish a zone that we call the Confidence Area in the center of Mitrovica on both sides of the river. This Confidence Area will give open access to the residents there and to specially authorized persons. No one will have permanent access there. We will establish an ID card system for those who are entitled to go around in that area. Freedom of movement and security for the people will be enhanced by this measure. We are going to continue to establish this area.

In the beginning we faced some resistance on the northern side by Serbs. KFOR had to use teargas to disperse the crowd. The situation is now under control and calm.

Yesterday again KFOR troops confiscated a large number of weapons and ammunition in two of the Multinational Brigades. On the night of March 14th ten house searches were conducted in different Albanian houses in Orahovac. Four rifles, two hand grenades, three hunting guns, one gun, one pistol, one rocket launcher, several rounds of ammunition and drugs were found and confiscated. Altogether five persons were detained for illegal possession of weapons. At the same time separate house searches were conducted in eight houses in Prizren. One hunting gun and one carbine were found and confiscated. One man was detained. The Multinational Specialised Unit arrested one Kosovo Albanian man after a search operation in Madanaj in Multinational Brigade West yesterday afternoon. Some various calibre ammunition and exploded cases were found. The man was detained on the grounds of illegal detention of war ammunitions. He was taken to the Italian Military Police station in Pec.

Questions

Q: You mentioned that your troops found drugs during the Orahovac house searches. What kind of drugs and how much?

HP: I don't have further information. I will try to find out the amount and get back to you.

Q: What is your response to Amnesty International's report on KFOR and UNMIK failing to support human rights standards in Mitrovica?

SM: I think both KFOR and UNMIK accept the report and find that it is correct. But things have changed since the time that it reports on, which was basically the events in Mitrovica that began on the 3rd of February. There were three major explosive incidents there. Following the night of violence on the 3rd of February, we started increasing the number of UNMIK Police and we have now doubled to more than 560 UNMIK Police. At that time, KFOR had the role of police, correctional officers, lawyers; they were not trained to handle all those different roles. There is a regulation about to be signed on an ombudsman office. That's an office that will basically stand between the international authorities and the people, to assist people who have claims or allegations of human rights violations. We immediately moved to bring in an international judiciary. There was virtually no judiciary in Mitrovica at the time. We've since gotten one international judge and one international prosecutor and there will be more coming. We've also been strictly enforcing the applicable law on detention, which is that a suspect can be held for 72 hours, after which a judge must either order his further detention or charges must be filed. That's probably why we have, I believe, only one suspect in detention from that whole period, because we are waiting for the international judiciary to get in place. We don't want to hold people unnecessarily.

PH: I would like to underline what Susan said. KFOR welcomes the report. We have nothing to hide and that's the reason we gave the representatives of Amnesty International free access to the detention facility. We are now looking into the findings and if we find out that mistakes were really made by soldiers involved, then we will take appropriate measures so that they cannot be repeated.

Q: Could you provide more details on the situation in Mitrovica today? How did it come to the disturbances and what was the resistance you mentioned? How did the Serbs resist? Did you make any arrests? Was anybody injured in these clashes?

PH: The picture is not quite clear at this moment. So far I can tell you that the establishing of the Confidence Area began and KFOR troops to the northern side extended the area. Some 300 Serbs were gathering there, trying to prevent KFOR from moving forward. They moved back after teargas was used. Altogether four people were slightly injured. Now it's calm, as I said. The initial point was that four, as they call themselves, "bridge watchers" were trying to prevent KFOR from going forward and that was immediately stopped. The bridge watchers were not allowed to stay there at the eastern bridge.

Q: With regard to the Confidence Area, could you give us more details on how many areas are being established and where?

PH: It will be one area in the centre of Mitrovica, extended to both sides of the river, including both bridges.